


tap your heels together three times.

by vantas



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disjointed, F/M, Implied Relationships, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Polyamory, Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Apocalypse, Survivor Guilt, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8888341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vantas/pseuds/vantas
Summary: The apocalypse happens. The Earth does not carry on. There is no convenient reset button to be found. (Or: Carlos, Akane and Junpei, as Radical-6 brings mankind to its knees.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prosodiical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/gifts).



> Regardless of what you celebrate or don't, I hope you have a happy 25th of December! :)

* * *

( **null.** )

* * *

In one timeline, it goes like this:

Carlos's hand closes around Akane's arm before he even realizes what he's doing.  His grip is strong enough to bruise, nails digging into the delicate skin of her inner wrist as his brain catches up to the rest of his body.  It's only then that he notices the broken bracelet in her hand, the injectors prepped and ready to administer the anesthetic to whoever happens to be on the other end.  Junpei, most likely, considering the way Akane's arm is bent.

(Vaguely — _stupidly_ , he notices how nicely the moonlight reflects off the ridiculously large rock on her ring finger.

But now is not the time for that.)

"C— Carlos?" Akane asks, eyes far too wide for someone who was about to pump her childhood friend ( _boyfriend_ , really) full of chemicals. Carlos's grip on her arm does not lessen, but he at the very least tries not to break the fragile skin under his fingernails.

He doesn't know how he saw it coming.  It wasn't SHIFTing, that's for certain. But somehow, he was able to pick up the minute trembling of Akane's shoulders; the inconspicuous way in which she slid the broken piece of her bracelet into her hand. Maybe it's the result of his choice in career, years upon years of firefighting sharpening his reflexes enough to save his friend's life without the help of an ability that even science fiction writers would have trouble explaining. Maybe, in another timeline, Junpei lays on the floor, counting down the seconds until the anesthetic kicks in and his memories of the last ninety minutes are erased from existence.

Maybe it's all just a bunch of nonsense.

He _feels_ Junpei react more than he hears or sees him, his presence both warm and rigid at his side.  " _Hey_ ," he snaps, tone sharp as he pretty obviously prepares to rip Carlos a new one. "The fuck do you think you're doing?!"

Somehow, Carlos keeps his frustrations from slipping into his voice.  _Stopping Akane from making a mistake_ , he wants to reply. _Saving your life_ , is another alternative — but given the inevitability of the Radical-6 outbreak, that one would be far too awful. Instead, he settles for: "She was going to inject you with the anesthetic!"

From his peripheral vision, he can see the exact moment when Junpei truly, honestly notices the item in Akane's hand. He pales immediately, looking very much as if his childhood friend just punched him in the gut, and Carlos can't exactly blame him for it. "No..." he says, disbelief clear in his tone as his gaze snaps from the broken bracelet to Akane's face. " _Why?_   Why would you do that?! You know I'd forget everything that just happened!"

And despite the situation, Akane doesn't look guilty.  There is no expression of remorse on her face.  Neither is there anything remotely resembling regret.  Instead, her expression is completely and utterly blank. A mask, Carlos thinks, as Junpei's words from back at the Power Room begin to make more and more sense. _I forgot you were like this_ , he had said, as Akane proceeded to blow their asses up sky high. At that moment, it had been horrifying. Now, even more so.

"Because I have to," she replies, her tone nice and even despite her current situation — the circulation in her lower arm cut off by Carlos's hand, and the expression on Junpei's face eerily akin to that of a child who just watched their ice cream fall to the ground.  Carlos has long since learned how to avoid falling into hysterics, but hell if it isn't tempting to do so anyway.

"Because you have to?!" Junpei replies, voice oddly pitched and rough around the edges. "Like _hell_ you do! That's bullshit and you know it, Akane!"  Despite his initial demeanor, back when Dcom started up, avoiding hysterics is clearly not one of his strong points.

"Junpei," Carlos cuts in, his tone reminiscent of the one he uses when speaking to those he's pulled out of fires.  Calm. Soothing.  The voice of someone who cares about them; of someone that is their friend. "You need to calm down. Yelling isn't going to—"

 _—Solve anything_ , is what he means to say. But as Junpei turns to snap at him, hands clenched into fists and shoulders shaking with barely concealed anger, Akane speaks up again while trying to shake Carlos's hand off. It doesn't work, for obvious reasons related to the significant difference in size and weight.

"You don't understand," she says.  Her tone is the same, but there is something tired and desperate in the background.  She's begging them to listen to her, Carlos realizes. "I have to do this.  This needs to happen if the AB Project is to succeed... If six billion people are to survive.  You need to forget, Junpei.  It's the only way."

"You can't really believe that," Carlos interjects, finding his voice among this mess. " _Why_ would you believe that?"

Akane simply shakes her head, her free hand coming up to gently touch Carlos's own hand — the one currently keeping her from going along with whatever idea's taken a hold of her now.  "Please.  Let me go, Carlos," she says, meeting his gaze and offering no further explanation. "This is the way things are meant to be."

Before he notices it, Junpei's closed what little space remained between the three of them.  He's out of the bracelet's trajectory, thankfully, but he's still close enough that Carlos feels the need to pull Akane back.  He doesn't want to think about what could happen if Junpei got close enough to be pricked by any of the needles.  Sleeping Beauty, as charming a tale as it had been back when Maria was young and conscious, seems much less pleasant in reality than in fiction.

"This can't be the way things are meant to be, Akane," Junpei tells her, almost pleadingly.  "We've SHIFTed through so many timelines. Left ourselves to die in so many different occasions. Your project failed once already, didn't it? Change the variables! Let me _help_ you. I'm not letting you do this by yourself."

"Junpei..." Akane replies, quietly.  It's both a warning and a request to stop.  It doesn't work.

"He's not the only one who won't let you do this by yourself," Carlos follows up, his hand still around her wrist.  "Six billion are going to die, and their blood is on my hands.  We'll both help you make this right."

Akane's resolve crumbles down like a castle made out of sand and soggy newspaper.  The bracelet clatters to the ground, needles bent as Junpei proceeds to shove it away with the toe of his shoe.

(In another time and another place, the AB Project is a success.

In another time and in another place, the AB Project is a failure.

But the outcome of this timeline doesn't truly matter, because it is only a _what if_.  A happier counterpart to the events that have been put on display for the whole world to see.)

* * *

( **one.** )

* * *

 Akane leaves them with a cryptic statement and an all encompassing sense of dread.

The drive back to society is terrible at best, and horrifying at worst.  The silence is oppressive, the ringing in Carlos's ears serving as a constant reminder of ( _what he caused_ ) what is about to occur.  Junpei remains unconscious in the backseat of the vehicle which, despite Carlos's current attire, does not happen to be a fire truck.  There are only so many things he can get away with in one night, after all.

He takes his friend to a hospital as far away from the test site as his gas tank allows him to.  Radical-6 is said to be highly infectious, yes, but he doubts it could take over the state of Nevada in the span of a couple of hours. Or, at least, he hopes that's not the case.  They did not survive an explosion and a hail of bullets in order to die because of a virus.

(And as he pointedly stares at the road ahead to keep himself from freaking out, he realizes one thing.

_He doesn't know what will happen to Maria._

Nausea threatens to overwhelm him.  He puts a stop to that train of thought soon enough.)

Their arrival at the hospital is more of a blur than an easily decipherable sequence of events.  One moment he's stepping in, Junpei cradled in his arms and the words _he needs help_ spilling out of his lips.  The next, he's sitting in a foldable chair waiting for Junpei to return to the world of the living and wondering if he did the right thing.  He's already fucked up tremendously, the blood of six billion people slowly but surely coagulating on his hands and permanently staining his fingernails red — but he wonders if he should have brought Junpei _here_.  And if he shouldn't have had, then he doesn't know what he should have done.  He has no idea where Junpei lives. He never thought to ask Akane where to go before she walked away, and bringing Junpei to Carlos's own house would give room to ample misinterpretation.  It's best to avoid that.

But there's hardly any time to think about that, because Junpei wakes up before he can get too far.

It's cliche, really. His confusion and the way he warily stares at everything and every _one_ like he expects things to go south at any minute.  Carlos can't blame him for it.  Neither can he blame him for furrowing his eyebrows and asking him: "Who are you?"

At a later date, Carlos will think back to this moment and congratulate himself for keeping a straight face.  Today, however, he can only focus on the sinking feeling in his stomach and the soul crushing _chill_ that seeps through his skin and bones.  Junpei should have forgotten only the last ninety minutes, not the entirety of the Dcom experiment.  But the more they speak, the more evident it becomes that that's the case.

He doesn't know what to do, except offer a carefully edited version of the truth.  "I'm your friend, Junpei," he says, trying to avoid thinking about the way Junpei had looked at him after picking Betray in the Power Room.  They're _friends,_ and that is neither here nor there.  "... And a friend of Akane."

It goes just about as well as one can imagine.

Carlos pretends he isn't hurt when, at the end, Junpei decides to roll over in the hospital bed and face the wall for the rest of the day.

* * *

( **five.** )

* * *

Humanity goes through the meat grinder, but the future comes regardless of whether anybody wants it to or not.

On one particular day, there is a blond haired child staring up at him.  The artifact currently secured around his head barely passes as a hat, but all of Carlos's attention is drawn to the decrepit painting the child presses against his own, small chest.

"What's that?" Carlos asks, his voice kind yet rough from being forced to divide his dwindling supply of water into even smaller rations.  It's not unbearable — he's been through worse ever since the bodies started piling up on the streets, but it's still enough to be uncomfortable.  He wonders if he can get away with a half a cup more for the day.   Probably not.

The child, small but obviously well-cared for despite the circumstances, presses his lips into a fine line.  "You don't know?" he asks, as if the answer should be obvious. "It's _funyarinpa_."

Carlos struggles to wrap his mind around the first two syllables, never mind actually _pronouncing_ them.  On his third attempt at butchering the foreign word, he gives up. "Come again?"

" _Funyarinpa_ ," the child repeats, eyebrows nit together and nose scrunched up. "You're going to hurt its feelings, mister. You should apologize to the funyarinpa."

Carlos rubs the back of his neck.  Considers apologizing to a tattered, black and white painting depicting what he can only identify as a soul sucking monster.  Doesn't. "Who taught you that?" he asks, instead.

"My grandfather," the child answers, simply.

And, really, Carlos should have _known_.  Vague memories of dice rolls and gaudily decorated rooms scratching at the surface of his mind, but it's 2072 and an old man can be forgiven for forgetting.

But he still should have known.

* * *

( **two.** )

* * *

Maria dies.

It's not from Radical-6, that much he understands.  It's not as if a girl stuck in a coma (for all intents and purposes) can slit her own throat, after all.  But she still dies.

And there is nothing to be done about that.

(Except, perhaps, blame himself.)

* * *

( **four.** )

* * *

In one timeline, there is a Carlos who goes back ten months into the past and stops Zero from setting his plans in motion.

He's obviously not that Carlos.

Instead, he is the Carlos who sifts through debris and junk in a broken, irradiated Earth.  It's only 2035, but with the weariness in his bones and the grime clinging to every inch of his body, it feels like it's been several decades longer.  The red smog has permanently settled into the sky, reminding him all too much of the eclipse he witnessed on New Year's Eve, 2028.

(Sometimes, he still hears Akane's voice from back when they were all young and slightly less fucked up.

" _I swear I'll make the AB Project a success_ ," she had said, all those years ago.)

Junpei is still alive.  He knows this for a fact, though they aren't exactly friends nowadays.  Not even when Carlos occasionally drags him out of long-since-defunct bars, re-purposed as gathering places for those who have enough resources to splurge on small luxuries.  Root beers, alcoholic drinks and assorted treats people used to take for granted back in the old days.  Junpei isn't wealthy enough to spend that much, but his breath still reeks of some mix of alcohol and other, unidentified substances.  Every exhale brushes against Carlos's neck, sending shivers down his spine as he tightens his grip on his not-quite-friend.

At some point of the night, when Junpei is splayed across a lumpy couch Carlos salvaged a year or two ago, he says: "You know where she is."

It's the only sentence he's spoken to him since he helped walk him home.

"I don't," Carlos responds. And in a way, it's the absolute truth.  He doesn't know where the Akane they survived the Decision Game with has gone.

* * *

( **three.** )

* * *

Over the years, Akane has become more of an _ideal_ than a human being.

Those who work with her look up to her as their brave leader; a woman who will guide them to victory, helping them shape a better future for alternate versions of themselves.  This timeline is lost, from what little Carlos understands about all this science-y mumbo jumbo.  But somehow, the mere thought of a world where Radical-6 never brings mankind to its knees is enough to keep the members of Crash Keys going.

Perhaps it's all the trauma and bitterness speaking, but Carlos has trouble wrapping his mind around that kind of optimism.

The Akane that sits before him is not the same Akane he knew from the year 2028.  Her face is set into what appears to be a permanent mask of calm and elegance, her hair pulled up into a bun to keep it from getting all over her face.

"I'm glad to see you're okay, Carlos," she tells him, hands neatly folded in her lap.  The ring Junpei gave her all those years ago still decorates the ring finger of her right hand.  He never got to put it in the correct place.

"Likewise, Akane," he responds.  The temptation of saying _nothing about this is okay_ is strong, but he bites his tongue and forces himself to keep things polite.  All of this is his fault.  He wishes he could be the Carlos from the alternate timeline — the one (that surely exists) where he stopped Zero from setting his plans in motion.  The blood of six billion people remains smeared all over his hands. Life continues to be unfair. 

Their chats, strange as they are, are always brief and irregular.  He doesn't know where Akane goes once they're done.  He doesn't know where she comes from before meeting up with him, either.  He used to ask her about it back at the beginning.  Used to beg her to let him help, to tell him where she's staying, to please speak to Junpei at least _once more_ to let him know she lives.  But after getting stonewalled so many times, he's learned not to waste his breath.

This may be Akane, but it's not the Akane he knew from the year 2028.

And even when he remembers a time where she bashes his skull in with a fire extinguisher, it still feels like he's suffered a great loss.

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* * *

( **null: 2.** )

* * *

Junpei's hand is spread flat against the curve of his back.  Akane's breathy laughter tickles his neck, her arms wrapped around his shoulders as she stands on the tips of her toes.  It's nice, he thinks.  They didn't meet under the most pleasant of circumstances, but the bond between them is strong. He would die for them, and time has proved over and over again that they would do the same for him.

From somewhere behind them, he can hear Maria's laughter.  It's loud and bright — by far the most beautiful sound he has ever heard in his life, and he still can't get over the fact that this is reality and not fiction.

"Get a room!" his little sister shouts at them.

And in this timeline where the blood of six billion people still stains Carlos's hands but they're together, he believes things could one day be okay.


End file.
